


To Make Our Houses Home

by Neffectual



Series: 104 Reasons to Stay Alive [23]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Female Hange Zoë, Growing Up Together, Gryffindor Erwin, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Hogwarts First Year, Hogwarts Fourth Year, Hogwarts Second Year, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Hogwarts Third Year, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inter-House Unity, M/M, Magic-Users, Ravenclaw Hange, School, Slytherin Levi, Witches, Wizarding World, Wizards, orisor inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2357582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Levi, Erwin and Hanji became best friends, through their seven years at Hogwarts, and how they changed prejudices and suppositions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Make Our Houses Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aileine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aileine/gifts).



> Gifting this to the wonderful Aileine, because she loves the big dorks it's based on as much as I do, and because I figured she'd appreciate the crossover. Basing the houses off the scarves I've been asked to craft, rather than any particular personal preference - but obviously Hanji is a Ravenclaw through and through.

When people ask how they became friends, Erwin will gaze into the middle distance and say it all started in the line to be sorted. Levi will snort, disgusted at the lie, and Hanji will just grin as Erwin claims:  
“That’s how I remember it.”

In reality, the line for the first years to be sorted is still the place where friendships are made and enemies are chosen, as has always been the way for centuries. Levi, being Levi, had picked a fight almost before they got off the train, and by the time Erwin had got to him, was being silently held by two larger boys whilst a sneering girl threatened him at wand point. Every the Gryffindor, even before his sorting, Erwin stepped in and got the other three to back off, then turned his attention to Levi.  
“I’m Erwin Smith. What’s your name?” Erwin said, cheerfully, unaware that this might not be the way to do things if he wanted to come across as friendly.  
Levi had looked at this child, blond hair and bright blue eyes, and sneered, lip curling into an expression he would keep for many of his years at Hogwarts.  
“Levi,” he said, shortly, and then when it seemed something else was expected of him, snarled and disappeared back into the throng of first years, a sea of small bodies in black.  
Erwin assumed the boy was being rude, didn’t want him to know his last name, and shrugged, turning to chat to the boy next to him, who towered over even him, as he waited to be sorted.  
When Levi stepped up to be sorted, one of the early ones, Headmistress McGonagall paused before she said his name, then proclaimed simply:  
“Levi.”  
The hat seemed to take a long time deciding over him, and in the end, a red-faced Levi stalked over to the Slytherin table, nearly tripping on his over-long robes on the way, and was greeted with a cheer from his new housemates. Erwin wondered why the boy had no last name.  
Except Levi was not the last child to have only one name, and Erwin would later learn in History of Magic that a number of old families’ names had been expunged from record after the Second War, to keep children of former Death Eaters – and their victims – safe from those around them. The lack of a last name was a target, an arrow which pointed either to wickedness or weakness, and Levi was not the only first year Slytherin without a name, but some did filter into other houses, too. However, the Slytherins were the only house to close ranks around those they considered vulnerable, and Erwin, sorted into Gryffindor, as his father had been before him, did not see Levi alone for the entire year. So he didn’t get a chance to speak to him during first year, and when asked, Erwin will always say that he considers that a waste of time they could have spent together.

In second year, Erwin was partnered up with a bouncy, gleeful girl in Potions, a Ravenclaw named Hanji, who unapologetically shook his hand when she met him, then giggled.  
“Sorry, not the way we’re supposed to do things here, is it?” she said, and that’s how Erwin knew that she was going to be a great person to spend time with. She was also surprisingly good at Potions, for someone who seemed to just throw in a dash of whatever she was holding at the time and hope for the best, but then, she said she had private tutors before Hogwarts, as Potions didn’t count as magic, per se. She grinned with the grin of someone who knew they were doing something a little bit forbidden, and Erwin decided right then and there that she was going to be his friend.  
Turned out that Hanji had Levi as her partner for Herbology, which the Slytherin boy despised, because it involved getting his hands dirty, which Hanji insisted was one of his least favourite things to do with the day. By all accounts, she got on well with him, for all that he was a sarcastic little sod, but he didn’t kick her unless she held his books over his head, which she had only made the mistake of thinking was funny once.  
So when Erwin was walking back from class and heard Hanji’s voice, he paused and changed direction to get to her, where she was speaking in hushed tones over Levi, whose voice was getting louder and louder. When the boy saw Erwin, his eyes flickered down to his Gryffindor tie, and he snarled.  
“What the fuck are you staring at?”  
Hanji looked up and went to greet him, then looked back at Levi, whose hair was Gryffindor red and sticking up at all angles, and set her face in a hard expression.  
“Friends of yours did this.” she said, no warmth in her voice, “And I don’t know the spells yet to get it back to black. What are you going to do about that?”  
What Erwin did, in the end, was bribe a fifth year who he knew dyed her hair the Muggle way, into giving up her black box dye, with promises that he would have some owled from home that week. She ruffled his hair as he went, and muttered something about idiot house rivalries. Erwin vaguely recalled she had a twin in Slytherin, and wondered what it was like to be so close and yet so far away from your family.  
When Erwin came back with the dye, Hanji whisked Levi into the girls’ toilets – they were not about to venture into common rooms as a group of three – and Erwin stood outside, keeping watch as Hanji painted the thick, gloopy mixture over the violent red, and Levi complained about it dripping on his ears and down the back of his neck.  
“You’re worried?” she said at one point, holding up hands stained black-brown with dye “I look like I’ve spent all evening cutting up slugs for Potions class!”  
Erwin took note of the names which the two whispered to each other, and it did not go unnoticed by Levi that three fourth year boys were mysteriously absent from breakfast, and that when the other two of his tormentors walked in, their noses were conspicuously swollen, the two ringleaders not having dared go to the hospital wing. Erwin himself had swollen knuckles, and McGonagall stood to give a lecture about inter-house fighting, and how problems should be solved by teachers, not by angry students. But Levi did not think he was mistaken in thinking that her lips twitched a bit as she said it, as if she was trying not to smile.

Come third year, Levi and Erwin travelled in on the train together, with Hanji arriving from nearby Hogsmeade walking, her trunk hovering behind her. Living in the village afforded her a little more freedom than the other children, but she did not go home often, and Erwin and Levi kept their silence about it. They did not ask what she did not want to tell. The train journey had been uneventful in any case, aside from a new firstie throwing up in the corridor, and a second year Hufflepuff practically throwing herself into their compartment to hide from a group of Ravenclaw boys. Petra sat with them for the rest of the journey, and when they arrived up at school, Erwin had dropped her off at her table, with a stern word to some of the older Hufflepuffs to look out for their own, before heading over to the Ravenclaw table to budge Hanji up the bench and sit with her and Levi. The three of them glared defiance at McGonagall, who smiled, misty-eyed, and then shook her head.  
“You know,” she said, “I had a speech all planned and prepared about inter-house unity, but I think Sm –”  
Levi tensed, ready for the inevitable first name among two last names, his public shame, but she stopped herself, and took a breath.  
“I believe Erwin, Hanji and Levi have already said what I wanted to say, and far more eloquently.” McGonagall finished, then watched as Petra got up from the Hufflepuff table and joined the three on the Ravenclaw bench, hugging Levi’s arm. “I believe we shall have to create a shared table if you make any more friends, Levi. Well done. Ten points to – ten points to every house.”  
Erwin wrote home about how he and his friends had single-handedly broken the whole house system, and got a Howler back in return, telling the whole hall that house loyalties were there for a reason, that they would affect jobs and prospects in the future, and that no one ever got anywhere with a Slytherin best friend. Erwin bit his lip through the speech, and if Hanji and Levi each slid a hand into his and let him grip them, nails digging into their skin, they certainly were not going to tell anyone.  
Late one night, certainly after curfew, in the room which they had dubbed the inter-house common room, Levi opened a book to a family crest, and wordlessly slid it in front of his friends, before hunching in on himself as if expecting to be hit. Erwin sucked in a breath, and Hanji bit her lip so as not to make a sound, and only a second passed before Levi found himself crushed between two taller bodies, his face in Hanji’s breasts, which were coming in nicely, if the way the other boys watched her was any indication. At his back was Erwin, and Levi thought about that later, in the dark, how Erwin had always had his back through the last two years. Hanji kissed the top of his head, and Erwin bent to press his cheek to Levi’s for a moment. Levi bit his lip, and refused to cry, refused to show weakness, but when a sob slipped out, Hanji and Erwin just held him even tighter, and he knew that here, between these two people, there was no such thing as being weak.

Hanji and Erwin did not hear from Levi over the summer between third and fourth year, and so when Levi was not on the train, Erwin panicked, gathering up those he could consider friends and associates to search each compartment. Mike was there, from Hufflepuff, along with little Petra, two of Hanji’s Ravenclaw friends, Moblit and Erd, and Erwin had grabbed Gunther and Auruo, two Slytherins who Levi could almost tolerate, and they searched each compartment, until they came across Levi sat right at the end, alone, reading a book. When he turned, Erwin heard the noises from those behind him, before he heard Hanji shoo them all away, so it was just the three of them again. Erwin pressed a finger lightly to Levi’s nose, and winced as Levi hissed.  
“Broken,” he said, standing, and looked at Hanji. “You’re good at the medical spells. I’m going to go and kick seven shades of shit out of the bastards.”  
Levi shook his head.  
“It’s not worth it – ”  
“Yes, you are,” Erwin said, viciously, and Levi flinched. “Don’t tell me you’re not worth detention for fighting on the train, don’t you dare tell me that.”  
“Fine,” Levi said, turning back to Hanji, the words indistinct as she touched his nose. “Go and hit Dawk, because Merlin forbid you ever use that brain in your head instead of just slamming your fists into something!”  
Erwin stalked off, furious, but as he got down the train corridor, he paused and thought about what Levi had said. Sure, he didn’t have Hanji’s work ethic, or Levi’s smart mouth, but he wasn’t stupid, no matter how much people looked at him and saw the big ox, the good-looking boy who looked like he needed help tying his shoelaces. He was blond, but he wasn’t stupid.  
When Nile Dawk got off the train without a bloody nose, no one was more surprised than Levi, who climbed into the carriage with Erwin and Hanji, after nodding to the thestrals, and gave him a look.  
“Dawk still has all his teeth.” he said, conversationally, as if talking about the weather.  
“A wise man once told me to use my brain.” Erwin said, gravely, and Levi smiled, a wide grin which split his face, and Hanji scolded him to be careful with his nose, after she had spent so much time healing it.  
It got through to Levi, though, that eight people had come to find him, that eight people had bothered to see if he was alright, and it was a while before he was unescorted to classes. McGonagall was seen having a sharp word with Dawk, who proclaimed his innocence. Levi didn’t tell them who actually hit him until two weeks later, when Erwin saw the burn marks and realised that no student could have done that. He begged Levi to come home with him for the winter holiday, but Levi shook his head.  
“He expects me back.” he said, quietly, and Erwin pulled him into a hug before the train pulled into the station in London.  
When Levi came back, after Christmas, he was Mr Ackerman to the teachers, and would speak to no one.

Fifth year was marked by the terror of the OWLs, and Levi was rarely seen without a book in his hands, Hanji studying quietly beside him, because a Ravenclaw friend was allowable if they helped you do better on your exams. Erwin was excluded, left alone, and he slowly realised just how few of his housemates he could tolerate, and how many of them hated him because of his interventions when they went to try a ‘harmless prank’ on Levi. He kept himself to himself, reading up on the more complicated spells, determined that his OWLs would be at least as good as those of Hanji and Levi, despite working alone. He wasn’t stupid, he remembered Levi saying that, he wasn’t stupid, and he was damned if he was going to be seen as less than intelligent, less than brilliant. They wanted him to be the Gryffindor darling, and so that would be what he would become.  
It was late one night in the library, and Erwin looked up from his book to see that he and Levi were the only ones still there, Hanji knowing that proper sleep was also imperative for optimum grades, and Erwin cracked, broke, slid into the seat next to Levi and slammed his book on the table.  
“Why won’t you talk to me?” he said, voice cracking, as Levi looked at his book with interest, ignoring him, “What did I do?”  
Levi turned, slowly, and finally looked at him. There were dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, and his lips were dry and cracked.  
“You existed.” he said, quietly, then shut his book and went to stand. Erwin grabbed him by the arm, and Levi stumbled back into his chair, wrenching his arm away. Erwin had felt nothing but bone and skin, like Levi was a walking corpse.  
“You’re killing yourself,” he whispered, unable to voice the words any louder than that.  
“Better than letting someone else do it,” Levi spat back, but he did not move. After a moment of silence, Erwin slid his hand into Levi’s smaller one, tangling their fingers together, and Levi let him. They sat like that in silence until the curfew bell rang, and then got up without a word to each other, heading for their respective towers, letting go of each others’ hands at the very last moment.  
Levi dropped the ‘Ackerman’ again, and started smiling and sleeping more, and so it really shouldn’t have surprised Erwin when they were alone in the library again, and Levi slid into his lap to kiss him. Erwin drew back, puzzled, but Levi’s face was nervous, shy, and Erwin was not going to make that change into something else, so he surged forwards and kissed back. The next morning, they showed up at breakfast holding hands, and sat on the shared table, rather than with their houses. Hanji joined them, with Mike the Hufflepuff in tow, and laughed when Erwin and Levi gave her identical raised eyebrows.  
“A Hufflepuff?” Levi said, with a wicked grin on his face.  
“Not what I expect to hear from the inventor of inter-house unity,” Mike said, swiftly, and Levi laughed.  
“This one can stay, I like him,” he said.  
“So glad I have your approval, your majesty,” Hanji shot back, and Erwin put his arm around Levi and kissed the top of his head. Nothing was going to stop them now.

Levi’s OWLs had been outstanding, of course, as had Hanji’s, and Erwin surprised himself – but no one else – by keeping up with them, and it was with a light heart that he had walked back into school, finally a prefect, finally able to take steps towards organising his own house into better people. It should not have come as a shock to people that Gryffindor were the most resistant to inter-house unity – after all, they held the position of power within the school that was threatened if Slytherins were seen as equal to them, but Erwin didn’t care for the politics of privilege. He pulled together those with siblings in other houses, tried to get them interested in sitting on the shared table for meals. It made no sense, he opined, for the other houses to get more house points for cooperation, or for not starting fights in common areas. There were those with siblings in Slytherin who only spoke through letters to their parents, and even those were carefully worded, so not to make house amends. it was stupid, Erwin said – and weren’t they all sick of being seen as stupid?  
Soon, half of Gryffindor house were crammed onto the communal table, and Levi had to sit in Erwin’s lap – or at least, that was their excuse, Hanji perched on Mike’s lap and grinning like a cat who had got the cream.  
“Typical, big blond walking in and expecting everything to go his way,” Levi said, with a smirk, and Hanji leered.  
“That how it is in bed, too?” she said, and there was a muffled ‘ooooh’ from the Gryffindors dotted around the table, and one Muggleborn student shouted:  
“Shots fired!”  
Levi turned calmly to look at Hanji.  
“At least I’m getting dick, thank you.”  
“If you call that a dick,” Hanji shot back, without even pausing.  
Mike looked at Erwin.  
“I think you should be offended by that,” he said, conversationally.  
Erwin shrugged.  
“At least I’m getting some,” he said, with a wicked grin, and Mike reached over to smack him on the arm. “Ow! Hanji, your boytoy is hitting me!”  
“Whatever happened to house unity, huh?” Hanji said, stealing bacon off Levi’s plate, ignoring his offended noises. “Oh, shut up, you don’t eat red meat anyway.”  
“Except – ” Erwin started, but was cut off.  
“Please stop,” said Mike. “I’m eating sausages.”  
“That’s what the kids are calling it these days, huh?” Levi said, with a smirk.  
Strangely, the mix of dick jokes and cuddling seemed to appeal to the remainder of the Gryffindor students, and Levi finally got to smile and shake hands with the boys who had tormented him. If he hexed them five minutes later under the table, well, Erwin wasn’t going to tell anyone.

Seventh year passed in a whirlwind of exams, and last times, and goodbyes, and Erwin falling asleep on Levi’s shoulder at breakfast after all night study sessions. Hanji and Mike both looked like they had been through a hurricane, although apparently Hanji had just decided that she wasn’t going to wait until after exams, just in case she didn’t survive the NEWTs. Mike wore a dazed expression of happiness, and Erwin clapped him on the shoulder in what he probably thought was a manly way.  
“Say anything to him, and we’re never doing that again,” Hanji said, and Mike’s mouth slammed shut. “Good boy.”  
“Women,” Levi said, and got thwapped in the back of the head for it.  
“As if you would know,” Hanji snarked back, rolling her eyes at him. “What was it, half an hour with one of the Milgram twins and you stumbled out of that room like the hounds of hell were after you.”  
“Both the Milgram twins,” Levi said, smugly, and Erwin looked at him. “What? This was before we were together.”  
Erwin sighed, and heaved Levi into his lap, a habit he had never quite grown out of, no matter how much muscle mass Levi was starting to put on.  
“You are nothing but trouble,” he said, fondly. “Why do I put up with you?”  
“You? Put up with me?” Levi laughed. “I think it’s more like the other way around.”  
Erwin silenced any more complaints with a kiss, before one of the teachers raised an eyebrow about inappropriate conduct over breakfast. Levi and Erwin left the room, with Levi grumbling that it was hardly inappropriate if everyone still had all their clothes on. Erwin countered this by commenting that he didn’t have any underwear on, and Hanji was almost relieved when the door of the great Hall shut behind them. She turned to look at Mike.  
“Do you think we should tell them that we’ve been having sex for three years?” Mike said, with a small smile. “Or shall we tell them that all we really did was play chess a little too vigorously?”  
“I think they might get the message when the wedding invitations go out,” Hanji muttered, then paused, and added, “Or maybe when we name them godfathers.”  
Mike gave her a look of pure horror before she dissolved into laughter.  
“You’re not – ”  
“Not until after my exams, no,” she said, grinning, “But good to know what your reaction will be.”  
Mike went back to his breakfast. He was going to need to keep his strength up if he wanted to keep up with Hanji – mentally and physically. She was always one step ahead.

When people ask how they became friends, Erwin will gaze into the middle distance and say it all started in the line to be sorted. Levi will snort, disgusted at the lie, and Hanji will just grin as Erwin claims:  
“That’s how I remember it.”  
Levi will smile a little at that, leaning into Erwin’s side, tucked against him like he can be protected by that strong body. People look at the two of them and think the handsome Gryffindor and the quick-witted Slytherin, and neither will ever admit that Erwin could out-think Levi if that were what he wanted, although he would still struggle to scheme his way out of a paper bag. Levi will look at Hanji, questioningly.  
“We don’t like seeing other people hurt,” she will say, face solemn for a moment, before Mike will elbow her and she’ll break into smiles again, leaning up for a quick kiss. “So we decided we’d make a world where we didn’t hurt, and go from there.”  
Erwin will wrap his arm tighter around Levi, and accept the small, soft kiss to his side in the same way he has always accepted Levi’s quirks and needs.  
“How do you think we became friends, Levi?” Hanji will ask, and Levi will straighten for the first time, moving a little away from Erwin, to stand on his own, proud and strong.  
“I think,” he will say, and pause to take Erwin’s hand, “that we saw a chance, and we took it. That we wanted something badly enough, so we made something work.”  
As they step out onto the castle grounds for the last time, after their graduation ceremony, the sun setting behind them, some of the students will turn and look at the old building, remembering memories made and friends found, lessons learned and years gone by. But three students, at the head of the crowd, stripped of their house colours, will keep walking, and will not look back.  
They are ready for their future.

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of the most enjoyable, heart-wrenching, wonderful things I've written. I loved doing this. I haven't written Potterfic for... easily ten years. I did not know how much I had missed that world until I delved back into it and fell in love with its magic - both real and metaphorical - once more.
> 
> Written to 8tracks playlists for Hogwarts First Years. About ten of them. And all were incredible. Mostly they made me love Phillip Phillips.


End file.
